The Story of Jaune
by joshiewoshie
Summary: This is the tale of a certain bumbling wannabe hero. Yes ladies and gentlemen, it is yet another Jaune Fic.


**Hi everybody, this is my second attempt at a RWBY fic, the first was an embarrassing attempt at an OC fic...**

**But for now, please enjoy:**

**The story of Jaune.**

I was never a good warrior you know?

It didn't matter how hard I trained, how much blood I spit, how many of my bones I felt break under the strain of my exertion. At the end of the day, I just wasn't good enough.

My family... oh how they tried, I know they did... But eventually, even they had to give up and admit that I wasn't exactly prime huntsman material.

My father tried to let me down gently, by assuring me that I didn't have to live up to the deeds of those that had come before me.

But what if I wanted to? What if I wanted the title and responsibility of Arc scion? What if I wanted to measure up against the greatest of my line?

What if I just want to be a bloody fucking hero?

My mother... dear sweet mother. How she tried to assure me that it didn't matter that I couldn't match up to my ancestors. How she would always love me no matter what. How I would always be Mommy's little boy.

Nice job unintentionally emasculating me mother... I know she meant what she said but... it's not a matter of parental approval. It's a matter of fucking personal approval.

It was my siblings, my sisters, that were the last to give up. They gave me the most advice, they were the ones who pushed me to my utmost limits, who tried and tried again and again until my bones broke and my body shut down.

And I loved them for it.

Which made it even more damning when even they finally gave up after my body broke once again for the Nth time.

I could not confirm it. But I think they finally stopped trying at my mother's behest. I saw the look on her face every time I broke down yet again. Like she had felt every moment of agony I had put myself through, like she lived though my pain alongside me.

The things that my sisters tried to steer me towards instead of training to be a huntsman, they were the things my mother tried to get me to do when she gave up on me.

I humoured them somewhat, it was the least I could do after all they had done for me.

But...

It hurt. Them, my own family, giving up on me hurt far more than any training I put myself through.

I would rather spit blood than to hear my father dissuade me from upholding the family legacy.

I would rather my bones break again and again than have my mother tell me that I was fine just the way I was.

I would rather my muscles scream in agony as I swung my weapon in a poor imitation of proper form over and over until I keeled over in exhaustion than see my sisters give up on me.

And I think... I think they _knew_ that.

My sisters hardly ever came home anymore, barely staying for a few days before leaving for some mission they volunteered for or were assigned to.

My mother did her best to assure me that I didn't need to follow the path of a huntsman... It felt more like she was trying to assure herself. I saw the pain, the guilt in her eyes.

There was a distance between me and my father, a distance he tried to bridge through acting like the boisterous fool in the family and teaching me about women. 'Confidence is all you need!' he said. Wasn't the whole point of confidence actually having something to back up your words and actions?

I had nothing.

So the best I could manage was a quite frankly shoddy, false veneer of it. He knew it was false, and he knew why. Still he never stopped trying, never gave up on trying to reconcile us.

And this were how things were for years, my family living with their guilt and me living with my shame and failure.

Until I got the bright idea to get my hands on a fake transcript and apply for Beacon.

Surprisingly, it got through. I now had a place in a school that only accepted the best of the best. There was no going back now.

I never informed my parents of my new place in the world. They would have never let me attend if I had. So I had to leave in secret.

I didn't bring much, a few spare armor plates, a few changes of clothes, my onesie, the lien I saved up from odd jobs, and other necessities.

For a weapon I took my great grandfather's sword. Crocea Mors, the yellow death. From young I had heard many stories of this sword, how it hacked through grimm like butter in the hands of it's original wielder.

To me it was nothing but a relic of a man greater than I was. A reminder of how much I had failed to live up to. But a weapon is a weapon and I didn't have money for something else.

My necessities secured, I left at the crack of dawn for the airship port and boarded the one headed for Beacon where I discovered something about myself.

I discovered that I had a new flaw to add to the already long list of personal flaws, air-sickness.

At least I had been delayed enough from puking my guts out into a conveniently placed trashcan to make a new friend in the form of Ruby Rose.

But from there it just got worse, like getting speared to a wall by Pyrrha Nikos at the behest of one Weiss Schnee who I had tried to flirt with and had apparently creeped out enough to ask the former to impale my clothing to a wall.

Following which, I was confronted by exactly how out of my league and in the shit I was when I was catapulted from a cliff into a grimm infested forest without a parachute. Ironically it was the same spear from before that saved my life and impaled my hoodie into a tree.

A tree that I was still hanging from.

A sound came from below, it sounded like someone moving through the bushes. I looked down and saw a white haired girl with a side ponytail glaring up at me with cold blue eyes.

I gave her an awkward and embarrassed grin, she turned and walked away without a word. From what I could see she was dragging a certain girl in a red hood away from me.

I let my grin fade into a blank, apathetic expression. One I used to hide my shame and failure. And I begun to think.

I had two options as of now, wait up here for Pyrrha to show up and get me down or find my own way down.

And after years of drifting about without doing something to improve my situation, of feeling sorry for myself, I had enough of sitting around waiting for something to happen.

Right... I placed both of my hands on the spear and gave it a tug... And I was falling. Before I could end up as a stain on the floor, i managed to control my clumsy tumble enough to allow me to ram the spear into the tree bark to slow my descent.

My shoulders and forearms burned from the exertion as the spear head tore through the tree before coming to a halt allowing me to let go and drop into a heap on the floor. Cradling my burning arms.

I nearly dislocated my shoulder from that.

Unfortunately for me, there was no rest for the wicked.

I could hear them before I saw them. They stalked out of the bushes and shrubbery, a pack of Beowulves, soon surrounding me.

There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Well, here I am. A lone man, barely trained and armed with a sword and shield standing against a small pack of Beowulves. I counted 8 of them, no alpha.

That old man Ozpin said it quite well, 'be prepared to destroy anything in your path, or you will die'.

This was my initiation into Beacon, this was my chance to prove to myself that... that I wasn't a disappointment, that I wasn't a failure after all. And like hell was I going to die here. I am going to live, I am going to graduate, and I am going to be a hunter.

I smiled, a grim smirk, the first true smile I smiled in a long time. And then I took a page from an ancestor I heard stories about and I roared, a desperate war cry and banged the butt of my drawn sword off my shield

"WELL? COME ON THEN!", the grimm looked taken aback at my shout.

I charged at the closest Beowulf, my sword raised high for a cleaving strike. And so began the dance of steel, blood and pain.

The last grimm lay slain, it's body already starting to evaporate. I took a few steps backwards, and collapsed.

I did it... I won... I'm alive!

I lay sprawled on the forest floor, my face facing the clearing in the tree canopy. My body was racked with bruises and bleeding wounds, most were shallow, the more grievous ones were taken by my armour, already was it rent in many places.

But that didn't matter to me.

I did it.

I DID IT!

I started to laugh, a joyful, maddening laughter that resounded in the silence of the forest around me. I continued to laugh even as the tears that streamed from my eyes stung the cuts on my face.

I'm not a failure.

I did not know how long I stayed like this, but eventually there was a new rustle from the bushes and out stepped in all her beautiful glory, Pyrrha Nikos.

Her eyes widened in concern as she took in my prone, injury filled form before rushing over to me.

"Jaune!" She cried out as she reached me and crouched down to get a better look at my injuries.

I should probably assure her I'm fine.

"Pyrrha, Pyrrha, I'm fine... Just really tired." It was true, fighting was exhausting.

Now she just looked perplexed, not assured.

"Jaune, why didn't you use your aura?"

Now it was my turn to be confused. The hell is aura?

"Aura... What's that?" I honestly don't know.

"Jaune... you don't know what aura is?" She looked really unsure about this question, like she felt that it was supposed to be common knowledge.

As much as I could go on a tangent about how many times I needed to repeat myself, I'll just settle for a simple reply.

"No, I don't know what aura is." I hope that was clear enough.

She seemed to consider something before grabbing my hand and pulling my injured form... really close.

"Look Jaune, I need you to trust me. Now close your eyes..." She seemed to not care that she was close enough to make me feel uncomfortable, and I still had no idea what was going on.

What the hell, wouldn't be the first risk I've taken so far. I closed my eyes and she spoke the words... Words that brought out... 'something' from what I felt was deep within.

_For it is in passing that we achieve immortality..._


End file.
